Rikhia
In 1991 Swami Atmananda closed the Singapore ashram and gave up her possessions, her following, and went on a pilgrimage with Swami Ramdev to the holy places of India, from Gangotri in the north, to Rameshwaram in the south.
But ultimately she came to the point of realization that, for her, the only holy place was at the feet of the master, her guru. She cut short the rest of her tour and went straight to Rikhia, to be again with Swami Satyananda.
Rikhia is the place Swami Satyananda chose for his retirement from Bihar School of Yoga, where he devoted himself to sadhana (spiritual practices) and meditation.
Swami Atmananda also felt drawn to a more meditative lifestyle, after all her years of active teaching. In Rikhia she would get up early, maybe 2 or 3 am, and sweep and clean her small bungalow before sitting for meditation for some hours before dawn, reading sacred texts, chanting or observing silence.
When Swami Atmananda died in hospital in Cuttack, Orissa, last year, our hearts also stopped beating for a moment, for she was an integral part of our lives.
She suffered from ill health in the last years of her life, which eventually brought her to hospital for an operation, and this led to complications causing her death.
Swami Ramdev looked after her in those months, and was with her when she died. He scattered her ashes, some in the sea at Puri, near the temple she desired to visit in her last days, and the rest in the river Ganges near Munger, where she started her life as a disciple of Swami Satyananda Saraswati.
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